“Just the same chance any one else would have, if you are the best player in the position,” retorted Larry. “The idea is to make a ball club—not to promote friendship.”
“I can play as well as any one here can,” retorted Harry, sullenly defiant.
“Then get out and prove it,” retorted Larry quickly. “Jake, we’ve wasted a lot of time. Get out there at second and we’ll try working that double play.”
He played abstractedly and missed several chances to make plays during the three-inning practice game with which they wound up the daily practice.
“I’ve done the right thing, I’m sure,” he muttered to himself as he dressed. “But it looks as if I had merely made more trouble for myself.”
It was his evening to call at St. Gertrude’s, and the trouble he had feared commenced to materialize more rapidly than he expected. He found Helen Baldwin nervous and excited. Her fair face was flushed and the dark rings around her pretty eyes indicated that she had been weeping.
“Oh, Larry,” she exclaimed, “I have been so upset. I wanted to see you. I’ve had such a dreadful time.”
“Haven’t they been treating you well here?” asked Larry, remembering the complaints the girl had uttered of the treatment she said was accorded her by some of the teachers.
“It isn’t Miss Hazlett this time,” she said. “It’s Cousin Harry. Oh, he is simply dreadful. Every time he comes here he scolds me just terribly because you are my friend. He was here to-day, and he told me if I allowed you to call any more he’d write Uncle Barney, and tell him, oh, dreadful tales about me.”
“That is funny,” reflected Larry. “Harry came to the grounds this afternoon and I invited him to join the team. I hoped we might at least quit quarrelling.”